Moving on...

My parents car was packed as full as the removal van as it pulled away from my beloved home... I was jammed in between the boxes. No seat for me in the car, as I felt there was no seat for me in life. At nine years old I knew without anyone telling me that the stable life that I knew had gone forever.

We'd had a cat you know... for my whole life. A ginger Tom, he never really had a name other than Puss. He was 15 the day that we left and the poor thing had had a troublesome couple of years that had seen him run over and nursed back to life in the last four years. Before he was sentenced.

I remember the day so well...

I (as always) was the first one out of bed. I must have been five - for I know that I hadn't started school. Our front door wasn't locked (it was 1977) but I heard him crying. I opened the large heavy door and there he was covered in blood, he was in such a state. To this day I have no idea how he made it back to our door. He spent weeks in hospital, he lost all his teeth from one side of his jaw, his pelvis was shattered and both of his legs too. But the vet was my dads friend and he promised to do his best to put him back together. And he did.

My mum and I nursed him, we fed him via pipette during the Terry Wogan radio show and Pebble Mill on BBC 1.

He made a full recovery too. They said that he would never be able to run or jump but by 1978 he was enjoying pride of place in the top bunk in the room that I shared with my sister.

Anyway, poor old puss, with his cute tongue lolloping out the side of his cute little slobbery chops was the lucky one. He never made it past my childhood home. His life cut tragically short by owners that didn't care for him any more than they care for me.